Sufjan Stevens

Monday was no ordinary Monday. Instead being terrible like it usually is, Monday, April the 20th brought a lot of good things: a visit from my boyfriend and a Sufjan Stevens concert at the Peabody Opera House. Now, I don't honestly listen to him that much, I know, I know. Blasphemy. But it's not for lack of not wanting to, I just never got around to it. I know how legendary he is, however, so I bought tickets because, well why not? He was half an hour away.
As we raced to the show, I got more and more excited. Partly out of actual excitement, and partly because we weren't sure whether the tiny etched "7:00" on the ticket meant doors or "7:00" meant Cold Specs, the band that was planned to open the show. And as we pulled up, and got a pretty good parking spot for downtown St. Louis, if I do say so myself, the general assessment was that we hadn't missed a thing.
We took our seats in the beautiful opera house, hipster kids surrounding us in waves of facial hair and thrift store outfits, and as I looked up at the dome of the theatre, and its bear emblem traced in white light, the auditorium slowly faded to black and a man with a blue cap stuck in his back pocket walked solitarily to the piano. As he started to play three chords in a slow and steady rhythm, more people walked to the stage and the sound grew and grew. When it reached its peak, the man slowly got up from the piano and walked to the front of the stage, grabbed his guitar and at the very peak of the sound, everything grew quiet and he played an intricate picking melody.
Suddenly, high definition screens in a pattern of elongated hexagons behind them began to show home movies and my first two thoughts were, "wow, that is quite the elaborate set for the opening band," and "wow, that guy is immensely good at guitar for the opening band."
When he opened his mouth that's when I knew, well after "wow, that guy sounds exactly like Sufjan Stevens." Apparently "7:00" had meant the beginning of the show and we had completely missed Cold Specs. Sorry Cold Specs! I'm sure you were great.
Having only heard about two songs off of his new album, Carrie & Lowell, I had no idea what the show would be like. We all sat in our seats and Sufjan never spoke to us, it was more of a performance than a concert. But it worked. His soft melodies and acoustic rhythms were more for sitting than for dancing. The one time it got a little upbeat was when he did an electronic version of "All of Me Wants All of You," which I wish was a version I could buy because it was spectacular.
He played the new album, almost entirely in order. Once he had finished playing most of the album, he finally spoke to us and gave a long prayer about how death will occupy all of us, and to live each day fully alive. After, he played a few beautiful songs from Illinois and Michigan and then started what would be the initial finale of the show. The song had no lyrics, but started out slow, and pulsed almost like breath. Disco balls slowly lowered and the screens in the back started emitting rainbow colors that faded in and out. About every minute the song grew faster and faster and built and built until the entire theatre was a swarm of sound, light and color. It was almost overwhelming, but such an experience, and so different than the memoir we had just listened to. As the song eventually ebbed, the band stopped playing and waved goodbye. We all stood up and didn't stop clapping and cheering until he came out again, to play a four part encore.
Throughout the entire set, what amazed me the most was how accurate and perfect his performance was. It sounded so similar to the recordings, it was almost unnerving, but it was all live.
Two hours after the man with the cap sat at the piano to play those first three haunting chords, Sufjan thanked the crowd and returned to his spot at the piano. The first three chords he played now were ones that everyone knew, even me! As the band jumped into "Chicago," the entire place cheered and sang along, much more willing, now that the songs weren't so delicate. And after a second standing ovation Sufjan and co. walked modestly off the stage.
If you have a chance to see him on this tour, I would highly recommend it. He is truly one of the most talented and interesting performers I've ever had the pleasure of viewing. So do it! And get his new album too, and all of his other ones, because, you'll all be proud of me, I've been listening to him just about nonstop ever since, and they're all amazing.
SO DO IT.

Until next week, peeps.